


Ke Kuaua

by madeofbees



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Banter, Danny Is Bad At Hiding Feelings, Episode: s1e23: Ua Hiki Mai Kapalena Pau, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Steve Is Bad At Feelings, Steve Is Steve and Danny Is Danny, Steve is a worrier, steve is overprotective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 15:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeofbees/pseuds/madeofbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Ua Hiki Mai Kapalena Pau: Steve is overprotective following Danny's exposure to sarin and insists Danny takes a shower. Danny protests. Fluff ensues. A getting together fic. Rating will go up!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ke Kuaua

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuOliveira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuOliveira/gifts).



> overprotective!Steve is extremely important to me.  
> hiding!emotions!with!extreme!irritation!Danny is just as important.
> 
> This is dedicated to my wife, whose favorite show is Hawaii 5-0 and OTP is McDanno and got me the first three seasons on DVD for Christmas and has converted me completely.
> 
> Please note that my health has been awful these days and while I'll do my best to keep writing and updating, I make no promises beyond one day.
> 
>  
> 
> _Translations for the Hawaiian are at the end of the chapter._

Danny was almost ready to go when he snapped.

“It’s a sock, Stephen! I am putting on a sock—a sock from my house, a house _without_ sarin, brought to me by Rachel, a _woman_ without sarin—and I don’t need your constant supervision! It’s cute, really, and I appreciate the ride home, but god, can’t you, I don’t know, get the car ready or something?”

Danny and Steve locked eyes. Steve once again had the helpless, hopeless puppy dog expression he’d been sporting since Danny woke up in the ICU, and while Danny could feel his resolve slipping and the need to apologize sneaking in, he stayed his ground. The problem was that he _had_ been apologizing and his resolve _had_ been slipping, and it had to stop. Now. Before Steve noticed.

Because Rachel already had, and it had been mortifying.

“Yeah, sure,” Steve said quietly, and left.

Danny pulled his sock the rest of the way on rather aggressively. He did need to apologize. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that he went to pieces every time Steve so much as looked in his direction, and Danny had enough self-control not to take it out on him. Probably. He’d just blame the crankiness on aftereffects of the sarin, and—wait, no, then Steve would worry even more and keep making that face, and…

Danny’s phone beeped, and Steve’s face popped up, indicating a text.

_Out front._

Danny shoved the rest of his things into the overnight bag Rachel had brought, somehow managed to carry the ridiculously large number of fruit baskets he’d received, and left.

Tried to leave, rather.

“Not so fast, Mr. Williams.”

Danny sighed, and turned to see the overbearing, overly strict nurse he’d been saddled with. “Yes, Nurse Moana?”

She frowned and crossed her arms, glowering at him. “You can’t just walk out of here like that.”

“Like what?” Danny asked, trying to stay patient, only Steve had already used up most of his patience. Like always.

“You have to be wheeled out,” she said firmly. “Federal law.”

Danny gaped at her. “Excuse me?”

She grabbed a wheelchair from next to the nurse’s station and rolled it towards him. He took a step back.

“Get in the chair, Mr. Williams.”

“Oh no,” Danny said, still backing away. “I’m fine. A-okay. Been checked out by the best doctors on the island and I’m good to go.”

“ _‘Ae_ , and you’re good to go in a chair,” she replied.

Danny cringed at the Hawaiian; clearly it was meant to intimidate the _haole_ , only it irritated him more than anything else.

Except when Steve spoke it, and then it was something else entirely.

“C’mon,” Danny tried half-heartedly. “Please?”

She brandished the chair at him. “Sit.”

Danny sighed again. “ _Me’oe makemake_ ,” he grumbled, just barely catching her look of shock before he sat, smirking. It was a rough translation of a phrase from one of Grace’s favorite movies, and it never ceased to shock the _kama’aine_ , at least until they figured out just how rough the translation actually was.

Thankfully, Nurse Moana didn’t feel the need for further conversation, and she rolled him out the front door without incident. The Camaro was waiting dutifully at the curb and, exactly as Danny thought he would, Steve leaped out and was by his side before he was off hospital grounds.

“It’s nothing,” Danny said quickly, standing up and holding his arms out— _check me, I’m clean_. “The law says I have to be wheeled out, I don’t know, it’s stupid. Stupid and _unnecessary_ ,” he emphasized, since Steve’s panicked face hadn’t gone away. “I’m fine.” He did a little spin. “See?”

“Christ, don’t scare me like that,” Steve muttered, picking up the fruit baskets Danny had set on the ground. “Let’s just get you home, and then we’ll see about fine.”

The nurse said something Danny didn’t catch before walking away; Steve, however, must have heard it just fine, because he was blushing.

“What?” Danny asked immediately. “What did she say?”

“Nothing,” Steve said, popping the trunk and putting the baskets inside—along with the overnight bag, which he took from Danny’s hand.

“That was not nothing,” Danny said firmly. “You’re blushing. I’ve never seen you blush. What did she say?”

Steve turned a darker pink, and something in Danny’s stomach flipped pleasantly.

_I need to see you like this more often._

“Nothing,” Steve repeated, getting in the car and slamming the door. “She was just being difficult.”

“Yeah, just like me,” Danny replied brightly. Anything to get Steve to blush—anything to distract Steve from Danny’s flipping stomach. “I’m always difficult. So tell me.”

“That you are,” Steve muttered, pulling away from the curb. “She said _mahu_.”

Danny frowned. “ _Mahu_. I’ve heard that before, I think. What’s it mean?”

Steve groaned, lifting one hand off the steering wheel and dropping it back down in a perfectly Steve-like gesture, the sort of gesture that made Danny fall in love a little more. “It means—traditionally, it was—but she—god, Danny, you really are difficult.”

Danny was getting flustered again, and so yet again he channeled his frustration into—into frustration, actually, but of a different sort. “Steve. I’m trying really hard not to whine here, but I have a nine-year-old daughter and I’ve been taught by the best. Do you really want to test me?”

“Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?” Steve asked, glancing at Danny, who made certain his expression showed nothing but irritation. “Like actually sat you down, looked into your eyes, and said ‘Daniel Williams, you are annoying’?”

“I have a nine-year-old daughter,” Danny repeated slowly. Banter, this was good. Just their usual banter. He could do this. “You know I can just Google this, right? On my phone, which is in my pocket? All I’d have to is take it out and turn it on and—click the, uh—”

Steve snorted. “ _Someone_ could Google it. You? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Goofy thumbs!” Danny exclaimed. “I’ll call Kono.”

Steve’s smile fell. “Just—it means gay, alright? You happy now? Yet another person thinks we’re gay.”

Danny turned and looked out the window. He was happy, actually, because every time someone mistook them for a couple, it seemed a little more possible that they might be.

“Fine. Was that really so hard?”

“Shut up.” There was a pause. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it?” he asked carefully. “As long as people don’t think me and Rachel are together, I’m good.”

Steve snorted again, and Danny had no idea what to think. Was he laughing because of Rachel? Because he was trying to cover up embarrassment? Because he was trying to cover up feelings?

Steve. Feelings. Right.

Then again, if he had them, that he would do everything possible to hide it.

 _Dangerous way of thinking, Danno_. _There’s nothing there. Nothing’s ever going to be there._

It didn’t take long to realize where they were going, and Danny was the one to break the silence.

“Your place?”

“My place is clean,” Steve said. “There’s food. You can see the floor. There’s not mold in the shower.”

“I don’t have mold!”

“Danny, it’s practically its own life form,” Steve said. “It’ll be running for Congress any day now.”

“How do you even know what my shower looks like?” Danny accused, heart slamming.

Steve gave him a look. “Because sometimes your place is closer than mine and I have a tendency to need showers.”

“A tendency,” Danny echoed. “You mean you get covered in blood and sand and oobleck and use my shower to clean up. No wonder there’s mold. Which there isn’t.”

“Oobleck?” Steve asked.

“Dr. Seuss, and stop showering in my shower,” Danny said firmly, silently adding, _because it’s making me think all sorts of things I shouldn’t be thinking, especially not with you sitting next to me_. “Why does it matter who’s shower has what anyway?”

“You’re showering,” Steve said, and Danny knew that voice. It was the _there’s no way you’re getting out of this not even over my dead body_ voice and Danny liked it a little too much. “I don’t care what you did in the hospital, you got the sarin from touching a dead guy, you’re taking a shower.”

“You think I haven’t showered?” Danny asked, gaping. “I was hosed down as soon as Kaye called it in, then given a sponge bath by someone I really wish hadn’t given me a sponge bath, and took a shower myself as soon as they let me stand. Repeatedly. I’m clean.”

“You’re taking a shower if I have to force you myself,” Steve replied.

_You have no idea how good that sounds._

“Hell no. But your insistence on getting me naked in your house, it’s really—it’s quite something.”

“Oh, for the—I’m trying to keep you alive, excuse me for caring,” Steve said, gesturing wildly. “I get that you showered, I get that your clothes are clean, but you just—you never know, and killing you is my job, okay? Not some dime-a-dozen, hell-hath-no-fury jilted lover.”

“Keep both hands on the wheel or you’ll get us both killed,” Danny replied, trying hard, so hard, not to make a scene over Steve caring. Over Steve admitting that he cared. “Just know that you’re overreacting, massively, and it’s embarrassing for you.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Right, because all the times you’ve freaked out that I’m about to die, that’s totally normal.”

“Yes, in fact, it is, because you’re my partner, and you were in immediate danger,” Danny replied slowly, carefully enunciating each word. “I’m fine.”

“Then there’s no harm in taking a shower now is there,” Steve asked, only it wasn’t a question. “You done acting like a baby?”

“You done acting like a jilted lover?” Danny shot back, not thinking. A split second of silence before:

“Rachel’s crazier than I thought, if her idea of revenge is forcing you to clean your body.”

“No matter how crazy you think Rachel is, it’s never crazy enough,” he said, all but holding his breath that Steve would let it go.

“Clearly.”

Danny waited, but Steve didn’t elaborate, and he relaxed. He could take a shower at Steve’s, no big deal. The fact that Steve was so worried did wonderful things for Danny. All that was left was to, y’know, _survive_ Steve’s overprotection and not melt into a puddle at his feet.

But yeah.

Sure.

A shower.

Danny could do that.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Translations:**  
>  ke kuaua = The Shower  
> ho'oku'u = Discharge  
> ‘ae = Yes  
> me’oe makemake = as you wish (from _The Princess Bride_ )  
> kama’aine = locals  
> mahu = gay, amongst other things


End file.
